Year One Curriculum Newsletter

Welcome back to school and to Year One. We are really looking forward to working with your child and together we hope we can make this year an exciting, challenging and successful one. We have outlined below the topics and areas we will be covering this term. If you have any questions or concerns about your child, please do not hesitate to come in to discuss them.

Our class topic this term is: ‘People Who Help Us’

We will be looking closely at different people in society who help us; such as the fire service (who are visiting us this term). Children will be identifying the different types of jobs which are available and what these jobs contribute to society and how they affect our lives.
I know there are many parents with areas of expertise in this subject. We would love you to come in and share your knowledge with us and the children. Just call in and we can arrange a date and time!

Wherever possible we will deliver skills through the project. However, there will always be certain subjects and skills that do not lend themselves to a particular project. These will therefore be delivered discretely.

Language, Literacy and Communication Skills
We will participate in daily Language, Literacy and Communication Skills activities. The children will have the opportunity to enjoy and share a variety of poems as well as fiction and non-fiction books and participate in independent, pair and group activities. Children will be familiarising themselves with popular children’s authors, in particular Julia Donaldson, and participating in project activities through literacy work via stories such as ‘The Light House Keeper’s Lunch’.
The children will also be following the ‘Jolly Grammar’ scheme of work which progresses on from the Jolly Phonic scheme that your child followed during Reception. They will be introduced to exciting characters and carry out actions to reinforce what they learn.

At Glasllwch we encourage the ‘look – say – cover – write – check’ routine for learning new words. When learning the spelling of a new word, your child will be asked to:
• Look at the new word very closely, spotting the shape of the word, the order of the letters, familiar letter patterns etc.
• Say the word quietly to themselves while they look at it.
• Cover the word or fold the paper back.
• Write the word from memory.
• Uncover the word and check to see if they are right.

It may also help your child to practise writing words within a simple sentence or by writing the words using different writing materials such as:
Felts
Paints
Chalks.

Reading
Reading will be carried out through guided reading as well as through shared reading and the home/school reading diaries. Your support in helping your child with his/her reading and discussing the author, stories and content together is invaluable in ensuring that they progress and achieve their full potential. Please could you ensure your child’s reading folder and completed reading diary comes to school every day. We will change your child’s books twice a week, discuss their diary with them and spend time developing their reading skills.

Spelling
Every Friday we will send home a list of spellings for your child to practise and learn in readiness for an informal test. Please make sure that your child brings their spelling book back every Friday. We would be grateful if you could support your child to learn how to spell these words, discuss the different sounds and identify these words when reading together. You may like to put these words into a sentence to support meaning.
Spellings will commence when children have been assessed on their Key Words for Year 1 and Year 2, during the first few weeks of term.

Mathematical Development
The children will participate in daily numeracy activities, consisting of mental, practical and written activities. The children will be working with numbers up to 20:- adding, taking away, doubling, finding the missing number, number bonds of 10 and finding numbers 1 more than, 1 less than. They will work with a partner carrying out real life problem solving activities which encourage thinking, reasoning and discussion. Supporting your child’s learning using coins when shopping, comparing the weight and measuring items around the home, telling the time (o’clock and half past the hour) and number activities will further develop their mathematical skills and knowledge. We will also be developing numeracy skills through project, where appropriate.

Knowledge and Understanding of the World
We will be investigating the history of some of the emergency services such as the Fire Service and how the ‘Great Fire of London’ played a part in the establishment of the Fire Service today. Children will also learn about Lifeboats and how Grace Darling affected the birth of the RNLI.

The children will be looking at how they have changed and grown over time, sequencing events and beginning to develop their understanding of a timeline. They will be sequencing events of the past and looking at them in detail, with particular reference to the ‘Great Fire of London’, Grace Darling and of course Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder plot!

ICT
The children will have the opportunity to use the computer as a tool for learning whenever they chose to. They will be taught to log onto and off the computer using their own user name and password, use data handling programs to record information alongside using the computer to play number, time, money, letter games and the internet to support their learning.

Welsh Development
As well as encouraging incidental Welsh throughout each day, they will be focusing on introducing and describing themselves, their likes and dislikes and the different feelings we experience. The children will be encouraged to speak Welsh at all opportunities.

Creative Development
The children will experience using a wide variety of art materials to produce topic, literacy and mathematical related artwork. Through our class topic ‘People Who Help Us’ the children will have the opportunity to sketch and to paint to create individual pieces and create project related art and landscapes. Using various techniques the children will also study their own faces and draw portraits of themselves. The children will be encouraged to think about mixing colour and to make detailed observations.

Songs will be sung daily (Number songs, Rhymes) and learned for our Harvest Festival and Christmas concert together with the other Foundation Phase classes. Children will be exploring using parts of their bodies to make sounds and will look at how different instruments and the way they are played can make us feel.

Personal and Social Development, Well Being and Cultural Diversity
As part of settling in to the new classroom environment and learning new routines the children will create a set of Year 1 rules that can be easily followed. Everyday routines and looking after ourselves will be discussed, including the importance of cleaning teeth and washing hands. Children will continue to play and work co-operatively and begin to take more responsibility in their learning by sharing what has been easy and what perhaps they need more practice in. The children will be encouraged to talk about what makes them happy and what can be done to help others. We will also be looking at special people and places and what it means to belong to a group, relating this to belonging to different religions especially Christian and Judaism.

Physical Development
The children will continue to develop their fine and gross motor skills during classroom activities and when using our outdoor area. During Gymnastics lessons, we will be looking at ‘Travelling’. We will use a variety of low apparatus to travel over and under in different directions on different parts of the body creating different body shapes. In Dance lessons the children will begin to develop movements to words, pictures and sound alongside working cooperatively individually, in pairs, in a group and as a whole class. PE lessons take place on a Monday. Please could you make sure your child has his/her PE Kit in school to change into and that no earrings/jewellery is worn to school and hair is tied back.

Pupil Voice
At Glasllwch School we continue to adapt and improve our school curriculum to encompass the interests and experiences of the children. We believe that asking pupils about what they would like to learn is fundamental to providing an engaging and inspiring curriculum. Please discuss at home with your child our class topic ‘People Who Help Us’ and we will be discussing in class what he/she would like to learn/find out during the topic.

As you can see we have a very busy and exciting and term ahead of us!
Thank you in anticipation of your support and co-operation.